Statue of BR Ambedkar vandalised in Uttarakhand

A statue of Dalit leader BR Ambedkar was vandalised in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut district on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday, after idols of Communist icon Vladimir Lenin in Tripura were pulled down and a bust of social reformer Periyar damaged in Tamil Nadu.

And now they have targeted Dr BR Ambedkar statue in Meerut, it was vandalised by unidentified people in Meerut's Mawana, late on Tuesday night. The vandalism of statues of public figures started after Lenin's statue was razed in Agartala. After being assured by the authorities, the Dalit community called off their protests. Both Sabroom and Belonia fall in South Tripura district. "Today Lenin's statue removed in Tripura, tomorrow it will be the statue of EV Ramasamy in Tamil Nadu", Raja had said in the Tamil post in facebook that had been deleted. The MHA in its earlier advisory had told all states and Union Territories that incidents of toppling and damaging of statues must be checked immediately and stern action should be taken to prevent such incidents. In Kerala, Kannur, Mahatma Gandhi's statue was attacked by unknown miscreant and spectacle of the statue was damaged.

But this didn't stop there, in few hours Lenin's second statue was vandalised in Tripura state and this spread like wild fire and other states got involved.

All the seven persons have been arrested, city police commissioner Rajiv Kumar said.

A local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Brajendra Narayan Mishra, had installed PM's statue in a temple before 2014 parliamentary elections.

Wednesday's condemnation, warnings and appeals coincided with Jana Sangh founder and BJP icon Syama Prasad Mookerjee's bust being blackened and its features smashed by an ultra-Left student outfit of Jadavpur University in Kolkata.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi "strongly disapproved" incidents of vandalism of statues in certain parts of the country and spoke to home minister Rajnath Singh on the growing concern.